Last week I attended a McIntosh event in New York city with a fine cross section of the audio press. The main focus of this audiophile get-together was based around listening sessions for two new flagship speakers, but also covered off on the myriad of global products the McIntosh Group owns under its corporate brand.

For those not familiar, in addition to McIntosh amplifiers and speakers the family umbrella also includes Sonus Faber, Audio Research, Wadia, Sumiko, and the Pryma headphone brand.… Read the full article

Paolo and Livio walk us through the process of designing the new McIntosh XRT2.1k and Sonus Faber AIDA loudspeakers. Recorded at the World of McIntosh Townhouse in New York, the body (industrial) and soul (acoustic) of design for the McIntosh Group discuss driver materials, colors and how our hearing is most sensitive to the scream of the weakest of our kind (2k-6k).

Don’t forget to check out PartTimeAudiophile this month for the Winter issue of The Occasional Magazine!

World of McIntosh is a brand name developed in 2015 by the longtime manufacturer’s parent company, Fine Sounds Group. Audiophiles who haven’t been paying close attention may be surprised to learn just how big that world is.

McIntosh, which was founded in 1949, for many decades has offered a fairly large catalog of electronics and speakers. But as it has gone through a series of acquisitions and corporate moves, it has become part of a larger family with numerous sister companies.… Read the full article

For those unindoctrined, PRYMA is a Sonus Faber headphone brand with a lifestyle skew. The initial wired offering starts at $499 and offer some pretty swank material options centered around a fully removable premium leather headband in a wide assortment of colors.

Following the wireless trend that is saturating a big chunk of personal audio [and even making its way into traditional 2-channel] PRYMA has incorporated bluetooth connectivity into the new version of its headphones, with a small twist on the single-receiver-wired-driver implementation of many other companies that play in the post iPhone 7 waters.… Read the full article